Well, finally here they are the pics of the e-bike that I’ve promised so many people…

… and it really is the best thing since sliced bread. It is however worth noting that it’s a pleasant 23 Celsius today with less than 40 per cent humidity. The verdict may yet change!

I’ve just stumbled across this, I wasn’t previously aware there was so much momentum behind teaching Mandarin as a second language – at least not outside of China

Wired 14.04: The Mandarin Offensive

Anywhere else and this might seem strange…

In-fact, given the look we got of this man, there was clearly something felt to be strange about this whole scene…

FT / China Economic Quarterly article that marks the passing of the 30th anniversary of a mass demonstration in Tian ‘An Men Square to commemorate the death of Zhou Enlai and that precipitated the fall of the ‘Gang of Four’ and the end of Mao’s China. The article makes some interesting and relevant suggestions about the relationship between democracy, freedom of speech and innovation.

FT.com / Comment

As an example of something that was mentioned recently on Ambling Sheep I can’t imagine a set of circumstances arising where I end up transporting a fridge on a push bike.

To be fair to the elderly gentleman concerned, it was more the car driving up the bike lane that was causing problems to the flow of traffic.

If you’ve not already seen it this is worth checking out, follow the links for the back story and to the transcript of the mail exchange on centos.org.

Oklahoma man asks Reg to turn off the internet | The Register

Also worth noting is one of the reg readers comments on people who use blue comic sans MS, now where have I seen blue comic sans ms before…

Snapped this in Bar 1828 the other day, make up your own jokes.

Hangzhou Gran in drive by snatch and grab shocker!

We’ve been robbed. It’s outrageously silly really but I’m annoyed at myself for not reacting at the time.

We pour ourselves out of a taxi with bags and bags and bags of shopping and one of the bags falls over. D bends down and starts putting things back in the bag. An old lady on a bike cycling down the street stops and picks up a can of tonic water that has rolled behind D. Just as I am thinking how nice (and indeed unusual here) it is for someone to stop and help a complete stranger like that, she puts the can in the basket on the front of her bike. I spend the second that it takes her to get the bike underway again thinking ‘can I be mistaken, is it not our Tonic water?’

It takes me that second to realize that this is actually happening, D has her back to the whole thing so I have to explain what just happened. D doesn’t immediately believe me, understandably. In the end the old ‘dear’ cycled calmly off down the street with a rather dumb-founded D shouting abuse at her in Chinese.

Could it have been a misunderstanding or was it somehow fair game once it was out of our shopping bag?

I’ve merged 我学习汉语 Blog into this blog.

Also from last weekend, the obligatory tree with blossom picture.